Transcend Engineering and Technology, LLC has received a Phase 2 award from the U.S. Department of Energy Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) program to continue development of the Profile Resolving In-situ Soil Moisture Sensor (PRISMS). PRISMS uses time domain reflectometry to measure soil moisture content in continuous spatial profile.

The grant will fund research and development aimed at commercializing the novel PRISMS technology. Transcend plans to refine algorithms that recover the soil moisture profile from electrical reflectance measurements, address the challenges inherent in transmitting energy through lossy soils, and to deploy PRISMS sensors for verification and validation testing at three additional test sites during the two-year project.

Transcend Engineering is pleased to announce its collaboration with Kenneth Williams of Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (LBNL) under DOE Award DE-SC0009646, administered by the Office of Science, Chicago, U.S. DOE Office of Acquisition and Assistance, Program Manager Rickey C. Petty.

Transcend Engineering develops innovations in sensing and instrumentation for geotechnical, oceanographic, atmospheric, transportation, and security uses. They are located in Bethel, Vermont.

Support provided by Vermont EPSCoR with funds from the National Science Foundation Grant EPS-1101317. Any opinions, findings, and conclusions or recommendations expressed in this material are those of the author(s) and do not necessarily reflect the views of the National Science Foundation.